News and Media

This Veterans Day, as we honor and remember the men and women who have selflessly served their country, we recognize members of the OU Law community who have also chosen the path of military service...

What led you to OU Law? I have wanted to go to law school since I was a teenager. I was active in speech contests and enjoyed making oral presentations. When I was in high school, I would go downtown and watch some of the trials at the courthouse, so, I got acquainted with the courtroom rather early. I obtained a Navy scholarship to go to OU. I was a regular Navy midshipman then I served three years in the far east before coming back to law school. I wanted to attend law school and came back to OU.

What led you to OU Law? OU Law has been part of my family since the 1920s. My great uncle was Dr. Maurice Merrill, a 1922 graduate of OU Law who then earned a Doctorate in Law from Harvard University in 1925. Merrill taught at OU Law for 30 years, published numerous seminal works in oil and gas law, constitutional law, administrative law and the law of Notice. While still in his twenties, Merrill published the seminal treatise Implied Covenants in Oil and Gas Law, which has been a cornerstone of my cases. In law school, I lived with Uncle Maurice and marveled at his longhand scrawl which was literally final copy in its first draft form. In my mind, he will always be ten times the lawyer that I ever became.

What led you to OU Law? When I was a sophomore in high school in Walters, Oklahoma--a town of about 1500--I was bored in study hall and found a book on occupations and professions. I went through the book and almost by the process of elimination, I came to the profession of lawyer. I wasn’t quite sure what lawyers did, but I knew they didn’t work in the fields the way I grew up, picking cotton and bailing hay. I knew they wore suits, and maybe I had in my mind that the practice of law had some connection to public office. At any rate, from that time, I decided that I wanted to be a lawyer.

Joyce Palomar, Professor of Law and Kenneth E. McAfee Chair in Law Emeritus, appeared on Sept. 9 as a featured speaker at the annual conference of the American College of Mortgage Attorneys.

Osborne M. Reynolds, who served on the OU College of Law Faculty from 1968 to 2002, passed away on September 4, 2020. Although retired, he continued his affiliation with the College, maintaining an office in the Emeritus Faculty wing. Professor Reynolds taught courses in land use planning, local government, regulated industries, and torts. He was a member of the Order of the Coif, Phi Betta Kappa, Phi Alpha Theta and the American Bar Association.

University of Oklahoma College of Law, 1969 Harvard University, 1966 What led you to OU Law? I came to OU Law school because I grew up in Bartlesville and I thought I wanted to practice law in...

On August 18, 1920, the United States Congress ratified the 19 th amendment granting American women the right to vote. To honor this day, we collected images of some of the first women admitted to the College of Law.

OU Law Associate Dean for Research and Scholarship Megan Shaner’s article, “Restoring the Balance of Power in Corporate Management: Enforcing an Officer’s Duty of Obedience,” was recently re-published in The Best of The Business Lawyer: 75 Years of Corporate Law .

What lead you to OU Law? As was permitted at the time, my first year at OU Law in 1956 was as an undergraduate senior at OU. I never questioned where I would go to law school. I was our family’s second generation to go to OU law school. We are now a five-generation family to do so. My dad and his identical twin brother, Ralph, were OU Law graduates, class of 1927. My grandfather, Dr. William Bennett Bizzell, was OU’s 5 th president. OU was a second home to me.